Retrieving oil from an underground location presents a number of challenges. One of the challenges occurs when oil has been located, but the viscosity of the oil or the adhesion to the surrounding underground environment prevents the oil from flowing into an oil recovery unit or device. This is particularly challenging in certain areas or when recovering oil from certain regions, such as oil recovered from tar sands.
In order to increase the recovery of the oil from an underground location, heat may be locally injected in an unguided or blind manner into the underground location, for example, by burning the medium in which recovery is sought. Such modes of heating are particularly inefficient as they consume at least a part of the end-product attempting to be recovered and because energy is wasted as heat is injected into areas that might yield no increase while areas that may yield oil if heated remain unidentified.